


Turn to the Infinite

by StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22403167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms/pseuds/StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms
Summary: A random, self-indulgent narrative cooked up after reading several excellent magical themed series. Detective fiction with a magical slant, and magical fiction with a modern overlay. Sort of an attempt at buddy-cop fiction with magic, no cops, and a significant quantity of moral ambiguity.Life outside the law has given Aris a wide range of unique experiences, but few of them have equipped him to work alongside a student of the arcane with a short attention span and a mission to fight crime. It doesn't help that he's not a big fan of the whole magic thing, especially when it's in excitable, reckless, and extremely fragile wizard form.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	1. How much for the night?

It wasn’t the first time a guy had sidled up to him at a bar. Not this bar, admittedly, but Aris would be the first to acknowledge that stranger things had happened, and stupider people had done stupider things. The Blundswell Tav wasn’t an appropriate place to sidle up to anyone, ever, and a hostile glance to his left confirmed that the moron in question wasn’t going to make it out of the building unscathed.

He was a bit narrower than Aris, if not much younger, and didn’t look like he’d be half-useful in a fight. _Blond_ , in just the wrong kind of way. The fact that he’d even managed to get to the bar without being publicly humiliated or dragged out into the back alley was nothing short of a miracle.

Which would have been mystifying, if Aris couldn’t actually feel the miracle humming off him like a particularly furtive kind of radiation.

‘I want to offer you a job.’ The stranger’s voice was rougher than expected, as though he’d rarely used it. He leaned on the bar top with one elbow, avoiding the worst of a puddle of melted ice and the discarded shells of nuts. The Blund was disgusting, and it suited most folks in here down to the ground.

Aris smirked at him, sliding his jaw slowly from one side to the other. ‘Not my line of work, think you’ll find.’

He wouldn’t have been the worst looking proposition Aris had encountered, and he was certainly the cleanest thing in the bar, but the comment was worth the slightly delayed flicker of understanding, and subsequent recoil. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

Leaning on the bar, pushing his way into Aris’s eyeline, forced him to tip his chin up a little, and exposed so much of his neck that Aris was decently motivated to slit his throat personally, given such a golden opportunity. Judging by the look the bartender skewed towards the little shit while delivering the whisky he’d gone to fetch, Aris probably wouldn’t even be thrown out for the murder.

Despite the brazenness of the stranger’s intrusion, and the magic quietly sheeting off him like heat, other drinkers had begun to focus on his presence. He looked like he could have cash. Maybe more - a watch, keys to a nice car, nice apartment. A family, maybe, who’d be interested in getting him back in one healthy, non-disfigured piece. The savages in here wouldn’t hold back for long, and Aris had seen them tear stronger prey to shreds with less incentive.

He took the whisky and returned to his seat, shifting to get a better view of the show.

It wasn’t entirely surprising that the boy followed him. Leaned over the chair opposite, and left his back completely exposed to the rest of the room like a complete idiot.

A few curious glances assessed the reaction to this. Aris wasn’t the most violent person here, not by a long shot, but when he sat alone he sat _alone_. Definitively. People had lost good, solid, working eyeballs over that important little fact.

‘It needs someone with your skills.’ The stranger continued, either oblivious to the imminent threat or stubborn enough to ignore it.

The bartender was still watching from where Aris had left him. A couple other patrons had swivelled on their seats, measuring the competition and the risk of an all-out brawl over who got the goods. Not all of them would go directly for the kid. A few would try to work out lingering grudges in the confusion, and most would just focus on breaking things, mainly each other.

Aris lifted his knee, resting his boot against the edge of the small table between them, and shoving. It scraped across the floor, pressing both the chair and the kid further away. ‘My skills aren’t for sale.’

A blatant lie, of course. He was as short on money as he was on friends, but low-key, under-the-table jobs served him well, without all the tedium of background checks and legal trivialities. The kinds of jobs where people personally tracked you down “for your skills” were lightning-rods for trouble.

And it was impossible to imagine the stranger didn’t know what kind of power he was carrying around. In Aris’s experience, the most dangerous kind to actually fuck with. Drinking with hardened criminals had the surprising advantage of keeping him mostly clear of that shady mystical bullshit. He wasn’t about to invite it into his damn _house_.

‘Alright.’ The kid looked down, and for a moment it seemed like he’d given up. From closer to the door, there was the sounds of a chair creaking as someone stood up. ’That’s fair. But just so you know, it’d be easy. And very well paid.’

Aris let his mind flicker, again, to sex, and then dismissed the thought.

‘How well paid?’ He didn’t want to work for this guy, that was for damn sure. Not to mention the job offer probably expired in the next two minutes when the boy did, but it wouldn’t hurt to hear just how valuable his reputation might have made him.

There was a figure slinking up to the bar now, visible over the stranger’s shoulder, eyeing them up while making enquiries of the bartender. At a table to their right, Aris saw someone’s hand fold indiscreetly around the grip of a pistol in his waistband.

‘I don’t know.’ The stranger admitted glibly. ‘I don’t deal with money.’

Something went pop! across the room, and Aris felt the room-wide flinch as everyone scrambled to locate the source of the noise. One of the lightbulbs above the bar had blown, showering sparks onto the sticky bar-top, and the puddled floor and the booze-soaked patrons.

The bar caught fire first.

‘I hope you’ll consider it.’ The stranger added, unfazed, and turned to make his way out, weaving through frenzied patrons lunging for the spreading flames.

A few acknowledged his departure with reluctant, distracted glances, but besides Aris and a few unconscious or utterly indifferent individuals, everyone had rapidly prioritised the safety of the liquor cabinet above all else.

For a couple of enjoyable days, he lived with the illusion that the damned little wizard had chosen a more willing employee.

It didn’t hurt to engage with people in the Blund every now and again. Aris played pool occasionally with other regulars, and he’d often taken a side-job alongside them when a crew had been shorthanded or a specific deal required more boots, but he never made the mistake of trusting anyone an inch. They didn’t dig for an explanation about the unusual visitor, but they watched intently, in case another came, or his behaviour changed, or money came into the picture.

“The shiny prick”, they called the stranger, mixing lowlife bitterness with surprisingly snobbish disdain. Aris fully expected him to be stabbed the moment he stepped foot near the building, if he ever tried it again. The occupants wouldn’t miss a second opportunity.

That might have been why he showed up elsewhere. On Aris’s route back to his car from some jowl-faced Jabba’s little private business party, where he’d caught some work as a bouncer. Ugly stuff, between the drugs and the strippers and the distinctly unattractive and immoral management tier involved, but easy enough.

When the kid materialised out the gloom, Aris caught his throat and shoved him into the nearest concrete pillar. Part reflex, he would argue, coming straight from the job. All satisfaction, though, when the kid kicked his knee in consternation.

‘Whaddaya want?’ He let the boy drop the minuscule distance to the ground, and stepped away, crossing his arms. Physically, there wasn’t much of a challenge in the guy, but it was more than possible he could react defensively with magic, and Aris was considerably less likely to win that argument.

‘To know if you’ve considered the offer.’ Came the baleful reply. ‘Obviously.’

Aris contemplated throwing him on the ground, and smiled. ‘Shove your fucking offer-’

‘You don’t even know what it is!’ The stranger protested.

He shrugged. He wasn’t interested. Magic had never been his strong suit, and that made it dangerous.

‘It’s detective work.’ The kid continued doggedly. ‘Mostly. Could be confrontational.’ He quirked an eyebrow and raised a lopsided grin, as though the idea of violence would naturally be appealing.

Disregarding the fact that it did appeal, very much, Aris snorted. ‘So you need an enforcer.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Anyone could be your big scary bodyguard, man.’ Aris glanced up and down pointedly. ‘Wouldn’t take much.’

He frowned a little, but didn’t dispute the comment. ‘I don’t want a bodyguard. I need a partner.’

Torn between a joke and genuine surprise, Aris hesitated.

‘An equal partner.’ The kid continued firmly. ‘I’m not interested in telling you what to do.’

‘Why the fuck did you come to me?’ He didn’t manage to swallow his surprise. He’d done a lot of different things - personal security, mercenary work, shipments, truck driving, disposal, acquisition, reacquisition, removal, pure labour, a very brief and catastrophic stint in hospitality and a sordid array of other jobs - and very few of them had been within the law, or at a level above minion.

None of them had involved powerful magic users, either, which he’d learned to appreciate from odd and unpleasant little encounters over time.

There was nothing particularly trustworthy about this, he decided. This had bad news written all over it.

‘Because you’re…Y’know.’The stranger furrowed his brow, choosing his words. ‘ _Better qualified_.’

Aris tensed automatically, resisting the urge to swing at him. In other words, because he was magic. Which made this whole thing a complete non-starter, as if he hadn’t already figured that.

How’d the little bastard know, that was the question. Aris had a reputation for being good with _confrontation_ , as he’d so cheerfully put it, but there was hardly anyone alive who knew there was anything to him besides that.

The kid seemed to interpret his silence as consideration of his terms.

‘It’s vital you’re familiar with both aspects of any situation.’ He explained. ‘The ordinary and the… unusual. People tend to be fixed in one or the other, and it’s unhelpful.’

‘And you aren’t?’ It was generally true in Aris’s experience that the stronger an individual’s capacity for magic, the less functional they were as people. Magic just seemed to parallel irrationality, unpredictability, and stupidity.

‘Absolutely am.’ He frowned. ‘Useless. Hate to be in charge of anything. And I really don’t see the point in most of this -’ He gestured vacantly, ‘- business.’

Aris took a few steps back, and started off towards his car again. Uneasiness was lodged up under his breastbone, roughly similar to the sensation of having a gun pointed at his head, but considerably less sensible. He heard the footsteps jogging to catch up.

He wanted to ask for more detail. _Why him?_ Somewhere in this godforsaken hellhole there would be a competent Schwarzenegger who wasn’t wary of the magic sewn through his being. _What mystery did a crazy little wizard want to solve like Sherlock fucking Holmes?_ _And who had figured out what Aris was and lived to talk about it?_

Maybe the kid could just sense it in him, like Aris could sense it in others. He was hardly the most gifted individual, so it could just be a normal thing for those carrying magic amongst humans. But nobody else had ever mentioned it, before. He’d encountered a range of the magical, from people with overwhelming power to those with negligible little sparks, who had all apparently been unaware that he saw what they were. It was more likely that someone had just told someone else, at some point - _this guy running jobs from the Blundswell, who can take a few bullets and keep standing, it’s like magic_ \- and it had been passed on until this shithead had caught wind of it.

Christ, people were just the worst to work with.

‘Look, I don’t want you to watch over me.’ The kid repeated. ‘I just need someone to try and solve problems. With me, or despite me, if that’s what it takes.’

Despite _himself_ , Aris smiled, tight-lipped and only because he was certain the kid couldn’t see it.

‘And you can’t find anyone else?’ He pressed.

‘No one with different training.’ The boy responded readily.

_Training?_

Aris hesitated.

‘You’re with the Guild?’ That would explain his power, and his certainty. It would also be a very good reason to get the hell away from him.

‘Yes. Technically.’ The boy looked on the verge of annoyance. ‘They’re not much more than a figurehead, these days. They don’t take action against transgressors.’

Well, that… simplified things. And it might explain why he was so determined to start his own venture. Aris stopped by the hood of his car, and the kid took a few steps further and pivoted to look at him, hopping slightly on one foot.

‘So what are you trying to detect?’ Internally, Aris conceded, with extreme unwillingness, that this could actually be interesting. Stupid, too, and he hated that, but _interesting_.

‘Stolen things, missing artefacts… missing people.’ The annoyance hadn’t subsided, but it was joined by something else… a hint of anger, or fear. ’The world is in flux, and we’re losing things too dangerous to lose.’

Aris considered him, momentarily. He looked young, fresh-faced enough to be naive about the way life worked. Idealistic, maybe. Very, very likely to get himself killed, which wouldn’t bother Aris much. But he was also connected to the Guild, to magic, and there might be considerable benefit for Aris in that, not least of which being money.

‘I’m not gonna fight a bunch of wizards.’ Aris muttered warningly.

The kid perked up, the corners of his eyes creasing with enthusiasm.

‘And I won’t follow any orders that are stupid.’

‘You’ll be completely autonomous.’ He answered eagerly. ‘Basically independent.’

‘Fine.’ Aris grit his teeth together as soon as he’d yielded. ‘Get in the car.’

He flung open the driver’s side door and settled into his seat, head snapping up in disbelief when the kid obligingly slid into the passenger seat next to him.

‘What the fuck, man?’

The boy startled, glancing sideways from his curious inspection of the faded and peeling dashboard. ‘What?’

‘You’re just gonna get into a stranger’s car in the middle of the night?’

‘You told me to.’ He responded innocently, meeting Aris’s gaze even as he reached for the dial on the radio. ‘Remember?’

‘How are you still alive?’ Aris groaned, immediately regretting the stupidity of his decision.

‘Magic.’ He’d turned the radio on, and was searching through the stations, but paused to wiggle his fingers theatrically. ‘I’m Felix, by the way. Most people call me Fix.’

‘Right.’ The word, _Fix_ , hung on the tip of Aris’s tongue, impatiently waiting for sarcastic repetition, but he ignored it. ‘Where are you going?’

Felix explained that he had rooms attached to his office, which seemed a roundabout way of saying he’d been working from his apartment. He was slightly vague on his definition of work, too, which wasn’t reassuring. If it had been anyone else, Aris would have been concerned about being lured into a trap, but Felix’s nonchalant incompetence seemed entirely too sincere.

His building was several districts out from where Aris had been working. It rose, white and silent against the dark sky, nestled into leafy residential surroundings. There were other apartment blocks nearby, and Aris realised they were getting close to the city’s oldest college. A student district, then. Safer and more modern than anywhere Aris had ever lived. He parked on the street, and reluctantly followed Felix into the building.

The elevator had the benefit of enough width for them to stand a whole three feet apart, but he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity afforded by the confined space.

‘How did you find me?’ It was casual, unthreatening. It didn’t need to be, if the boy was as indiscreet as he seemed.

‘The Guild.’ Felix said simply, watching the number panel light up with mild interest.

Aris felt his chest constrict. ‘The Guild knows about me?’

His companion scoffed. ‘Much as they know about anything, yeah.’ He glanced up. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. Like I said, they’re essentially symbolic these days.’

The elevator pinged, and the doors slid open on the seventh floor. It was crisp and clean, and dimmed lights guided them down the hall.

‘Here.’ Felix produced a key and popped the door open. ‘Second door is the kitchen.’

Aris passed him as he flicked the hall lights on, and poked through the door on the right. He swivelled dubiously in Felix’s direction when the open frame revealed the outlines of a bathtub and toilet.

‘Uh.’ Felix tripped over a pair of shoes randomly lying on the hall floor. ‘Second on the left, I guess.’

He kicked the shoes aside and continued down the hall, pushing into an open, suddenly bright room. Immediately he stumbled over a stack of books, sending a few of them spinning across polished timber. The room was sparsely furnished, with a desk curving from the right-hand wall across the space in front of them, and a kitchen bench stretching down the room to the left and cutting back beneath a line of narrow windows. What it lacked in furniture it more than made up for in books and knick-knacks and odd, indeterminate bundles cluttered across every visible surface.

Aris’s attention caught on the wall beyond the desk. There was a whiteboard, yet to be mounted, leaning against the skirting board, scrawled with unreadable sentences in black and red pen. Other notes, pieces of paper with dark scribbles from top to bottom, or markings drawn in thick lines, were stuck directly to the plaster wall. Some of the marks were recognisably sigils, even if Aris’s only familiarity with them was from a brief and quickly abandoned google search. They could carry power, he’d discovered, but he didn’t really know how or why they were useful.

High against the wall there was a photograph of a girl, dark haired and gothic, reclining against some outdoor chair. It looked like the image had been cut from a much larger picture, disguising her location and whoever else might have been present.

Having replaced the books, Felix straightened up.

‘Yvette Lai.’ He’d followed Aris’s gaze to the photograph. ‘Been missing two weeks now.’

Aris stepped closer to the wall, trying to decipher some of the writing. The notes seemed to spiral outwards, from relatively essential facts about her routine, acquaintances, behaviour, into increasingly desperate comments and suggestions about apparently unrelated topics on the perimeter.

‘You know her?’ Aris asked, measuring the sharp lapse in Felix’s enthusiasm.

‘I went to school with her.’ He nodded. ‘She has a knack with transpatial magic.’

Aris scowled at him and he reacquired his smile. ‘Portals, basically.’

‘Right.’ He obviously hadn’t given up on her yet. Was it this specifically that Felix had needed help with? There were other patches of research on the wall, surrounding pictures of objects or descriptions of events. ‘What have you got?’

It was too late for anything practical, and Aris really should have just gone home, made sure he covered his tracks, and spent a good portion of time showering off the evening’s grossness, but he’d agreed to try this crazy job, so it wouldn’t hurt to get a grasp of the operation Felix had already put in place.

The kid took a deep breath, and started to explain.


	2. More than you can afford

He wasn’t intimidating. Fix had expected him to be intimidating. He wasn’t sure how, or why, but he’d expected more.

Aris was surprisingly reasonable, all things being said. It had been a effort to figure out how to reach him - money had seemed the obvious choice, but he’d been unusually resistant to that - and somehow it seemed ties to the Guild had been the deciding factor. Difficult to fathom, since Aris himself would hardly be popular with them, if they ever bothered to pay attention.

Strange, also, in a way, that he knew of the Guild at all. Many with magic didn’t, even if their power was too significant for them to dismiss in the day-to-day. The most typical reactions to underlying magical ability were denial, secrecy, or rationalisation, all of which were better options than public declarations of “magical power” and resulting ostracism. Aris seemed to fall into the secrecy category, because Fix’s arrival, offer, and justification wouldn’t have made much sense to him if he’d been in denial, or viewed his abilities as “just an natural quirk”.

He’d departed in the later hours of the morning, leaving Fix searching the wall, for the thousandth time, for something he’d missed.

It was an impulsive decision, to ask for his help so soon. Felix had planned to approach cautiously, find out more about him, figure him out, but the situation with Yvette was too immediate. They were well beyond the window for expected survival in missing persons scenarios, and Felix _needed_ to know what had happened.

’How do you know she didn’t just teleport herself away on holiday?’ Aris had asked, thumbing through an itinerary of her activities prior to her disappearance.

‘She didn’t tell anyone she knew.’

‘People do weird things.’ He’d shrugged, heavy shoulders barely lifting, without looking up. ‘Specially magic ones. She didn’t call into work?’

‘Doesn’t work.’ Felix had told him. ‘She’s a student.’

A very promising physics student, which he hadn’t said. Her choice of major had earned a raised eyebrow with every other practicing mage he knew, and even if Aris wasn’t practicing, he wasn’t eager to see it again.

Aris had examined the wall a bit more curiously, but he hadn’t said much. ‘Close with anyone?’

‘She talks to her mother every day.’ Fix answered, shifting from foot to foot. ‘Has close friends at college. She’s on first name terms with all her lecturers.’

‘Uh huh.’ He didn’t look convinced. ‘Anything unusual happen before?’

‘Not that anyone remembered.’ And Fix had talked to everyone he could find. She was a cheerful, sociable individual, who carefully managed her time between friends and studying.

So maybe shed had been a bit of a rebel in high school, close to flaunting magic directly in the faces of their schoolmates, but so had Felix. Even Lucia, the most level-headed of the three of them, had her wilder moments. Still, she never would have disappeared on her parents. Especially not her mother, doting and magical just like Fix’s always was.

‘No boyfriend? Girlfriend?’ Aris had leafed through the notes again. ‘No nightclubs, bars, parties. No Tinder?’

Felix had frowned, tried to understand that question in context, and failed. Aris moved on, ignoring him. ‘She leave a phone, computer?’

‘Her laptop was in her apartment. Not much on it besides research. Her phone was missing.’

‘Right.’ And he’d fallen silent, contemplating the nightmare of a wall.

There were patterns, links between Yvette’s disappearance and a strange surge of focus directed towards the magical. It wasn’t the first time - similar situations had arisen out of the popularity of Harry Potter, Dungeons & Dragons, even Frozen - but this was strangely specific. Not magical-seeming objects being sought by enthusiasts, but _magical_ objects being relentlessly pursued by someone with an _objective_.

It was normal, the Guild argued. Magical items frequently moved between people, some with magic, some without, and only occasionally caused problems. Didn’t matter, that there was a concentration of objects disappearing here, in Avenburg. Didn’t seem to matter that the odd person was vanishing too. Didn’t even seem to matter that Yvette had gone, even if her mother had long been a Guild-ally.

Maybe there wasn’t a good reason for it, like Fix thought. Maybe he was just bored, like Lucia suggested. Maybe he’d let his fascination with the darker edges of the magical world lead him astray.

After all, he’d gone to Aris. A criminal. A killer. An unknown, threatening thing, hovering just within the Guild’s sphere of suspicion. More normal than magic, Fix would think, looking at him. The Guild had been informed that he’d shown signs of a regenerative ability, particularly, and he’d been blacklisted for being dangerous. It didn’t seem particularly fair, given that he was evidently dangerous in a non-magical way. All he had, and all he needed, was the mere knowledge of an secretive inner world, and they’d sentenced him for it.

Still, it didn’t particularly matter when the Guild refused to do anything but sternly sanction their foes.

He was still turning the possibilities over in his mind when the door swung open, and his guest reappeared. He blinked across the room, mystified. ‘I thought you went home.’

A few hours ago, at least, if he wasn’t completely losing his mind.

Aris grunted, dropping down on the edge of the desk. ‘Get your shit together, we’re going to her apartment.’

Fix dazedly wandered towards the hall. A passing inspection revealed that Aris had, in fact, changed from his previous outfit. If the beleaguered slant of his hair was any indication, he’d showered, too. He must have left the apartment door open on the way out, and let himself back in.

Felix grabbed clean jeans and a shirt from his room, but replaced his favoured jacket, and threw some water on his face in the bathroom. He’d had minimal sleep, in the past couple weeks, but it hadn’t bothered him. Possibly because nobody had been around to witness it. The unamused, sleepy-eyed figure in the kitchen was probably the only person who’d been in the apartment for just as long, and the only person Fix had tried to talk with outside of the case.

That was done with, now, he supposed. Aris was _in_.

Yvette’s apartment was only a few blocks away. Perhaps that was contributing to Fix’s sense of responsibility. She was extraordinarily close, physically, but they’d drifted apart after school. Or, she’d drifted away, along with most of the others. Only a few of their generation had remained steadfast Guild disciples in Avenburg, and Felix was one of them, and he had little time to pay attention to the lives of those who had pursued more mundane studies and careers.

Excluding Lou, of course.

He had a spare key - borrowed from Mrs. Lai - that he used to unlock the door. Yvette’s apartment was in less of a monolith than his, ground floor in a three-storey building, with a little shared terrace and a garden. Her rooms were neat, in spite of the inspections undertaken by both the police and Felix himself.

There wasn’t much to disturb. Yvette lived simply. Her university research was restricted to a sizeable laptop and a bookcase of texts and carefully ordered notebooks. She favoured one heavy, refillable, ballpoint pen, and kept her desk clear of everything except for post-its and a coaster with a cartoon cat on it. There was a bowl for fruit, or keys, or odds-and-ends at the centre of the small breakfast table, which sat empty. There might have been fruit in it back when Fix had first explored the place, but he didn’t remember, and if so someone had obviously removed it. A photograph of a seashore was hanging on her living room wall, and a moderately sized television sat opposite the matching cushions and the blanket folded on the sofa.

It was all misleadingly peaceful. Fix leaned on the kitchen counter and watched closely as Aris looked around.

He seemed peculiarly intrigued by her DVD collection, and her choice of art, both the seashore and a triptych of waterfalls on her bedroom wall. He examined the charging cords and standing-fan plugged in on her nightstand, and the gym bag in her closet with sneakers and spare clothes inside. The few make-up items in her bathroom cabinet, and her meticulously organised desk drawers.

Fix watched him glance at the To-Do list on the fridge, and the notebooks on her bookshelf, and the Year Planner on her nightstand, and move on without a flicker of interest.

He didn’t say much, either, and Felix allowed it up until he started rummaging through the chest of drawers opposite her bed.

‘What are you looking for?’ He didn’t consider this inappropriate, precisely… but it could easily go the wrong way. Especially since all of her presumably tidy delicates were being shoved aside in an impressively unruly manner.

‘Weapons.’ Aris grunted, as a tank top flipped over the edge of a drawer and hit the floor.

Fix snorted, and let him carry on. As if the collective intelligence of everyone who had previously searched the apartment wouldn’t have been able to come up with a weapon, should one have been hidden in here.

‘Right.’ Empty-handed, Aris shoved the final drawer home, and paused to grimace at the despondent item of clothing still lying on the floor.

He snagged it and stuffed it dismissively into one of the top drawers.

‘What do you think?’ Fix asked eagerly.

‘I think I’m hungry.’

He stopped for food on the way back to the office, extremely reluctantly allowing Fix to combine their meals into one order. Felix considered explaining that he was using the Guild’s money, and swiftly decided against it. Aris seemed wary enough of their influence, and it was practically still his first day.

‘The last time someone saw her was when she left campus to go home.’ Fix noted, slinging an ankle across one knee and propping the other against the dashboard. He balanced the box containing his burger between the three.

Aris nodded, silent. He’d already heard Fix’s description of events the night before she’d been reported missing, but there wasn’t any indication that he was even thinking about the case.

‘And she doesn’t seem to have reached the apartment.’

This time he glanced over, and Felix hesitated.

‘At least, there’s no sign of a struggle.’ He pointed out. ‘And they ran a blacklight over the place in case there was blood.’

No response.

‘Nothing seemed out of the ordinary there.’ He tried again.

‘Nothing?’ Aris’s tone was relaxed, if slightly mocking.

Felix took a bite of his burger and waited for Aris to continue, anticipation bubbling under his skin.

‘That place was a stock home, man.’ Aris commented. ‘Empty. Hollow.’

‘Empty?’ Fix thought of the heavy pen, the fruit bowl. It didn’t seem empty, but he didn’t really know what normal folk had in their houses. ‘What stuff?’

Aris shrugged. ‘I dunno. Pictures. Crap. Look at all your garbage.’

Fix did, realistically, have a lot of stuff. He considered it _work stuff_ , though, and therefore justifiable. ‘You don’t think she lived there?’

Ignoring the question, Aris said; ‘What’s she like?’

‘Uh.’ Felix thought about it, briefly. ‘Dedicated, by all accounts. Hardworking.’

‘You don’t know?’ Aris shot another look sideways. ‘What’d you think of her?’

‘I hadn’t seen her in a while.’ Fix admitted. Probably two years, at least. Was it possible that he could have prevented this, if he had somehow been in contact with her recently? Or if they’d never lost touch at all?

‘When you knew her.’ Aris prompted.

‘Huh.’ He tried not to grin too openly. ‘Funny.’

‘Not “dedicated”?’

‘Ah, nah.’ He bounced his knee against the dashboard. ‘She liked to wind people up. She felt- I guess we all felt different. Better.’ It was a hard thing not to feel, when you grew up being told you could have the world at your fingertips with just a thought. It wasn’t as simple as that, and it wasn’t as satisfying, which was why a lot of people gave up the training, but at the time they’d felt special. Superior. Limitless.

Aris made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded offensive, but Fix couldn’t identify why.

‘She like to break rules?’

 _Yes_.

Felix had opened his mouth to answer before he stopped himself. He could see what Aris was getting at, now. The idea that Yvette was hiding something. Presumably, to Aris’s mind, something illegal. In fairness, Fix had brought him in for a fresh perspective, but he’d hoped to get a realistic view of the culprit, rather than a criminal’s portrait of the victim.

‘You think she was up to something?’ He asked instead.

Aris pulled up in front of his apartment building, running up over the curb so unceremoniously that Fix had to snatch for his food before it toppled on the floor. He killed the engine. ‘Show me the list again.’

He meant the itinerary, and went for it as soon as they’d gotten back into the apartment.

Felix stretched idly and threw himself into the closest desk chair. He waited, watching Aris glance between the itinerary and the notes on the wall.

‘What is it?’ It sounded sullen, with his chin to his chest as he slid down in the chair, legs stretched out. He didn’t feel it. His new employee was already almost inconceivably focused, and he was sharper than Fix had expected. Admittedly, he’d only heard good things about Aris’s effectiveness and efficiency, but those were still only good things about a criminal… and a fairly unambitious one, at that. He couldn’t have predicted that the man would take the job so seriously, especially so swiftly.

‘When did she go to the gym?’ Aris demanded, voice cutting through Fix’s reverie.

‘What gym?’

‘Didn’t she go to the gym?’ He turned around and glared with unnecessary intensity.

Fix shuffled upright in his chair awkwardly, considering. ‘Not that I heard.’

Aris frowned, then grimaced. ‘Why does she have a gym bag?’

It took a minute to recall the duffel bag on the floor of the closet, the clean blue sneakers, the change of clothes. A bit of cash, too, in one of the internal pockets, and a bottle of water with some snacks.

‘Maybe she used to go?’ Fix suggested patiently. ‘Or she wanted to start? Or she just jogged in the park, or whatever.’ He wouldn’t have known, despite his own regular visits to the parks in their shared suburb. She could have jogged right past him and he wouldn’t have noticed.

Aris appeared to ignore him. ‘And why the two phone chargers?’

That one stumped him. ‘Huh?’

‘Two chargers by her bed.’ Aris pointed out. ‘For different kinds of phone.’

Fix hesitated. He hadn’t noticed. ‘Maybe one wasn’t for a phone… maybe a kindle, or-?’

‘And.’ Aris interrupted. ‘If she never made it back from college, why was her laptop in the apartment?’

Maybe she hadn’t taken it. It was a big, unwieldy thing, not designed for taking notes. Felix pondered; ‘If she had a little tablet, instead, that would explain the extra charging cord.’

Aris grunted acknowledgement, discarding the itinerary.

‘There’s no other places she went?’ He asked impatiently. ‘No locker or safety deposit box?’

Felix shook his head in the negative, and watched Aris twist away from the desks. He strode towards the front windows instead.

What would Yvette have to hide? Fix slid down in his chair again, steepling his fingers over his stomach. A relationship, possibly, but he couldn’t imagine why she’d be so interested in concealing it. Aris had asked about a _girlfriend._ Maybe that could be it, but even then he didn’t think she’d be worried about people knowing. It was also widely accepted that most mages dated and married ordinary people, as her mother certainly had, so it couldn’t be _that_. Conversely, the prospect that she was seeing another mage would have thrilled her parents. It was excellent for the bloodline, practically ensuring that children carried some magical heritage.

A secret relationship would only make sense if there was something truly objectionable about the individual. If they were a serial killer, for example, or a realtor.

Curiously, Fix raised his head to see where Aris had gone.

He’d wandered the length of the kitchen bench, and was peering around the corner warily. The room sat in an L-shape curve across the front of the apartment, and Aris hadn’t yet seen the large section of it hidden from view by the corner. It was only a couple of slab-like blue couches and a television that Fix hadn’t had time to set up.

That and the shiny black punching bag that he’d only barely been able to string up between the couches and the kitchen bench. It seemed to have caught Aris’s eye specifically, and he glanced dubiously in Fix’s direction before asking; ‘This yours?’

‘Yeah.’ Fix agreed ruefully. ‘Thought I’d try it.’

Aris pushed it, watching it swing from the metal pulley suspending it in the air. ’And?’

‘Never actually…’ Felix grinned at him. ‘Y’know, bothered.’

Uncharitably, Aris remarked; ‘You should.’

Fix shoved out of the chair and wandered over while Aris explored the rest of the apartment.

He’d chosen the second bedroom, to sleep in. It was further from the bathroom, but also from the front door. Aris nudged the door open, gaze passing briefly over the mattress on the floor (Felix hadn’t gotten around to buying a bed frame yet) and the overflowing bookshelf, and the clothing piled in disarray over a spare armchair and part of the floor. He closed the door.

‘So,’ He calmly moved to the first bedroom. ‘What kind of magic do you do, exactly?’

Felix stared at the back of his head.

It was genuinely difficult to tell how much Aris knew about any of this. Not so much a matter of intelligence, which he seemed to have, but a matter of inexperience. Lack of exposure. Lack of _training_.

‘A bit of everything.’ He said cheerfully. ‘With varying degrees of skill.’

Aris blew out a breath of air, and Felix tentatively added; ‘You know about natural and studied magic?’

Slowly, Aris nodded. ‘Normal people and wizards, you mean.’

‘Sure.’ Fix grinned, mostly to himself.

The second room was still cluttered with boxes and half-built bookshelves, and the windows overlooked the neighbouring building, rather than the road and the suburb’s lower rooftops stretching out towards the college.

Mages, Felix called them, and those who studied magic he usually called Archmages, but there was a broad spectrum of practitioners who didn’t fall easily into the two categories. Both types were born with magic, but it typically took different forms. Mages could range in skill and power from the minuscule to the extreme, but they were generally constrained to a particular arena. Felix’s father was an example of one such individual. Even with knowledge of the Guild, even having studied magic for decades, he couldn’t extend his abilities beyond the sphere of illusion. He could make the house look clean, hide something from view, and in one of Fix’s favourite childhood games, make shapes and creatures parade about on the walls, but he couldn’t conjure or change anything _real_.

Archmages, on the other hand, were relatively unconstrained. If they were born into it, and their parents were obliging, they would be studying spells from the time they could speak, as Felix and Lou had. They could expand their knowledge and ability in different types of magic, and dedicate their lives to accruing the broadest range of abilities, or the most power within their chosen sphere.

It didn’t mean they always chose to stay in the profession. There wasn’t as much freedom for Archmages in this era, which was both a blessing and a curse, as career options were largely limited to Guild-adjacent research positions. There were often more exciting things out in the mundane world, even if it meant a mage had to forsake the vast variety of magic available to them through training.

‘You have a knack?’ Aris asked, unexpectedly. He was dangling a god’s eye charm he’d found from one hand, watching it spin in the air.

Felix blinked, surprised, until Aris looked across at him. ‘Like your friend. With the portals. A knack.’

‘Oh.’ He fidgeted. He could say no. Could lie, and say it was something wholesome. The thing was, back in school… he _did_ have a knack. Like Yve with her doors, and Lou with her sweet-talk, but the reality was none of them were supposed to be doing the things they were good at. Particularly not the way they did. ‘Yeah, I guess.’

Aris already looked amused by his discomfort, and he put down the god’s eye just to cross his arms expectantly.

‘Hexes.’ He admitted reluctantly, and watched as understanding dawned in Aris’s gaze. ‘I wasn’t bad with hexes.’

It hadn’t seemed fair, at the time, to be banned from using his peculiar skills. One of the Guild’s rules was “Do no harm” - excepting matters of self-defence, of course - which coincided fairly well with traditional school restrictions. But Felix was very, _very_ good at causing trouble, and there were no end of deserving victims in high school, at least to his impatient, adolescent mind.

‘What kind of hexes?’ Aris leaned back against the wall, head tilted.

‘Little things.’ Fix explained, reddening. ‘Nothing permanent. Or painful.’

‘Mm-hm.’

‘Y’know, itchy clothing, hiccups, things like that.’ Irritating hexes, admittedly. Hex magic was a brutal ability to have when you were fourteen and vindictive as all hell. ‘Not that it’s any excuse.’

‘Hexing a bunch of teenagers.’ Aris shrugged, wearing a faint smirk. ‘Sounds fair.’

’I…’ Fix started to protest, and then surrendered. He shouldn’t have done it, at the time, but it had been irrefutably enjoyable. And from what he knew about Aris, mild hexes couldn’t seem like much of a misdeed. ‘Yeah.’

‘What’s that?’

A sharp change in tone preceded Aris’s march across the room. He prodded something on top of a cabinet in the corner, a little glass cube with a screwed-on lid, filled with clear liquid.

‘Nail polish.’ Fix answered blankly.

Aris scowled at him, snatching the bottle. ‘Right, dumbass, I see that. Why do you have it?’

‘Oh.’ Felix smiled. ‘Wards.’

_‘What?’_

‘Wards. Sigils.’ Felix gestured at the walls. ‘For protection.’

He strode over to the nearest wall, and raised a hand, casting light against it from an angle. The sigils he’d painstakingly inscribed over the course of his first week in the apartment were still delicately arranged across the paint in translucent lacquer.

Aris drew closer cautiously. ‘Protection against what?’

‘Mostly against malevolent magic, break-ins, burglary, that kind of thing.’ Felix moved his hand, and hence the light, across to others. ‘This one is to soften noise. That one is to prevent house fires.’ Having travelled the length of the wall, Fix turned to find Aris looking around in alarm.

‘Are they everywhere?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. Keeps the apartment as secure as possible.’ Amended; ‘While still allowing us to access it.’

He didn’t miss the way Aris’s gaze skated over the remaining walls, the door, window. Suspicious, and understandably so.

‘So if I punched you, they would stop me?’

Felix laughed, short and startled. ‘Depends on your intention.’ He sought and touched one of the sigils, let the light fill the lacquered surface until the shape of it glowed. ‘It would probably reduce the force a bit. If you tried to kill me, it would stop you.’

‘What if you tried to kill me?’

‘They’re independent of me.’ Fix clarified, continuing to illuminate the sigils. ‘I imbued them… Activated them, I guess, but they’re more like fences than active magic. Restrictive. I couldn’t try to hurt you either.’

‘Fences. On walls?’

‘Or gates, sometimes.’

‘But they’re strong enough to stop anyone?’ Aris didn’t seem convinced. ‘Anything?’

‘Probably not. There are ways around them, especially if they’re created with overly specific parameters. And there is stronger magic than mine.’

Even if he _had_ laced the apartment with them, threading the barriers through everything he could. After all, he was searching for someone pursuing magic, and he was a hopeless hoarder of magical objects. It was a catastrophe waiting to happen.

‘I don’t-’ Aris trailed off, quizzically studying the glowing walls.

Fix waited for him to finish, recapture the thought, but he didn’t.

‘Gates.’ He said instead, focus shifting suddenly. ‘Gates how?’

‘Uh… through channelling power. Using, say, a fire sigil to make a hotter fire. Or a force sigil on a weapon to make it stronger.’

‘So you could use them to make hexes stronger?’

‘Oh, yeah. Lots of hexes are strengthened or cast with sigils, or charms.’

Aris seized the bottle of nail polish and brandished it at him. ‘Your friend - Lai - she had one of these.’

‘Nail polish?’ That didn’t seem particularly strange to Felix.

‘Clear polish.’ Aris corrected. ‘Could it be for… these things?’

Fix shrugged. ‘Easily.’

‘Right.’ He strode past, back into the hall. ‘Get your coat.’


	3. Professional B&E

The sun had dipped low on the horizon by the time they reached the woman’s apartment. Girl, Aris supposed, if she was the same age as Felix. It was inconceivable that Felix was much more than a teenager. He barely looked twenty, and if his mannerisms were anything to go by, he’d easily pass for younger.

But powerful. The magic emanating off him during his little light show in the office had been startling, even impressive.

The oddest discovery so far was that Felix just talked, like he didn’t think there was anything to hide. He just knew about magic and used magic and talked about magic, like it was an ordinary thing, like Aris was as much an insider as he was.

And it was difficult to suppress the urge to _hear_ more. To have every little detail finally explained - why Aris was what he was, why others didn’t recognise their own magic, why it was all a big fucking secret in the first place - without the stupid riddles wizards normally used.

 _Normally_ , admittedly, applying only to the two wizards Aris had actually met before. One of them had been unwilling to interact (unsurprising, given that Aris had been hired as security for her business during some shady deal) and the other had just been… old. And posh. And a dick.

Comparatively, Felix was an open book. An open book that followed him around and stared at him and asked questions while he tried to do the job.

There was another wave of magic as soon as they’d entered the apartment, Felix hardly waiting for the door to close. It felt almost like heat, radiating from the little ball of light in his palm, but it wasn’t warming. Aris crossed the room and pulled the blinds down over the terrace window, silently congratulating himself when the walls started to glisten with marks. More sigils, he assumed, until Felix’s light curled around their unfamiliar edges.

Where the patterns at the office had seemed geometric and self-contained, these were asymmetrical, pointed and rounded arbitrarily, and bunched together in places like the letters of a word.

Aris glanced at Felix, expecting some confusion, possibly disappointment, and found him smiling almost wistfully at the marks.

‘Gothic.’ He offered, by way of explanation, noticing the look. ’Yve always liked it. She said “tradition was a weapon of control by the patriarchy.”’

‘Hm.’ Aris weighed that against his mental image of the council (a group of old men in capes) and snorted. ‘Solid. Do they work?’

‘Yeah.’ Felix shrugged. ‘It’s a superficial difference.’

‘But you can read them?’

‘Sure. Yeah.’

‘Does she have things… marks… for specific places? Anything unusual?’

Most of the magic stuff, Aris understood, could be done autonomously. In isolation, and drawing directly from the person to the world, like Felix carrying around his orb of light. But it was also exhausting, which he knew from personal experience. If the sigils were a way of reducing the time and energy it took to cast, wouldn’t a woman with teleportation powers find it faster to just make a gate?

Felix seemed to grasp his meaning, and began hunting the room, squinting at the symbols. He checked the bedroom, and the bathroom, and returned empty-handed.

‘They’re luck sigils, mostly.’ He said regretfully. ‘Uplifting and supporting and stuff.’

Aris settled onto the sofa, irritated. ‘Fuck.’

‘Where did you think she was going?’ Felix asked, leaning on the kitchen counter, and the only thing that prevented Aris from punching him was the genuine curiosity in his tone.

‘The bag.’ Aris gestured to the bedroom doorframe vaguely. ‘It’s like a bug-out bag.’ A small and light version, but enough for a swift getaway, a sudden change of scenery.

‘In case there’s a disaster, or if you’ve been…’ He tried to summon the right word to adequately describe this to Felix, who may never have been threatened once in his short existence. ‘… compromised.’

Contemplatively, Felix nodded. ‘Makes sense. Move over.’

He’d crossed the room and was shoving the edge of the sofa before Aris had fully processed the sentence. He straightened up, allowing Felix to reveal the strip of unseen wall.

There wasn’t much to see besides a few dust bunnies and a slightly more plush section of carpet, but Felix seemed unfazed. He stepped onto the arm of the sofa, instead, and lifted down the seashore.

It was the oddly non-committal choice of art that had initially given Aris a sense of this place as a hotel room - half-occupied at any given time - but the bare stretch of plaster behind it just made him wonder if he’d lost touch with the more well-adjusted members of society. Even the wizardly kind. Maybe the middle class just liked landscapes.

Felix hissed through his teeth and put it back, but only to bound a few steps away and into the bedroom.

The glow from the sigils was beginning to fade, and without any actual lights on the apartment was filling with gloom, looking even more like a hotel than ever. Aris tried to focus on his frustration at making no progress, rather than the discomfort of being wrong, looking _stupid_ in front of the wizard.

‘Here!’ Felix yelped from the neighbouring room. ‘Got it.’

For the sake of dignity, he chose to stroll into the bedroom, but the discovery of Felix on all fours with his head stuck in the wardrobe made the effort worthless.

‘Could be something.’ Came, muffled, from a little halo of light in the darkness. ‘Not sure if it’s a sigil or not.’

Reluctantly, Aris leaned over him to get a look. The marks were more elaborate than anything on the walls, but they seemed to form a single entity. It wasn’t glowing, despite Felix’s evident fascination, and he was moving the light across pieces of the whole in order to see it all.

‘Okay.’ He shifted back onto his haunches suddenly, and Aris stepped away from the wardrobe.

‘What is it?’

‘No idea.’

A dozen sarcastic remarks immediately sprang to mind, but Aris couldn’t react fast enough to get one out.

‘But it’s pretty detailed. If she had to set up a channel, this would be a strong one.’

‘Now what?’ He was not optimistic about the answer.

True to form, Felix looked shocked. ‘We try it, obviously.’

‘But you don’t know what it is.’ Aris noted coldly.

‘But that’s how we find _out_.’ Felix answered, unperturbed. ‘I’ll do it alone.’

For a moment, Aris just _looked_ at him. Reminded himself that this idiot had walked into the Blund, and gotten into his car, and was just generally a few cards short of a deck.

‘No.’ Aris suspected that if the wizard died, the job died with him. And he’d already tolerated too much to not get paid at the end of this. ‘Just move.’

He did not like how fucking stupid an idea this already was, but of the two of them, he was more likely to survive an unknown hostile spell or teleport.

Felix moved the sum total of three inches sideways, somehow still occupying the majority of the wardrobe. Aris eyed him. ‘Get out of the way.’

‘It’s not a literal gate.’ Felix’s condescension nearly earned him a swift right hook. ‘I still have to cast the spell.’

It took a few seconds to sink in, and Aris groaned. The dumbass had to take him through. _Dammit_.

‘Right, then.’ He turned sideways, pushed his shoulder into the wardrobe, and grimaced as Felix caught his arm. ‘Get it over with.’

He curled his other hand around the grip of the pistol tucked into his jeans, just barely covered by the hem of his jacket. Felix kicked the sigil with the toe of his shoe, and everything went black.

‘Shit.’ The light flared, casting Felix’s face in bright lines and dark shadows. He started to move, and Aris snapped an arm out to stop him.

The air was relatively still and cool, and the light gleamed off a few metallic surfaces surrounding them. There wasn’t much noise, beyond the distant rumble of traffic, but Aris wasn’t ready to assume that they were alone. He withdrew the gun, carefully, and flicked off the safety. Between the swearing and the light, the kid was the only visible target for anyone hidden in the vicinity. The wall was close behind them, though, and it wouldn’t take much force to shove Felix out of the way.

Heat was building under his skin, tension sparking the usual instinctive defence.

Felix clicked his tongue impatiently and cast the light upwards.

The room was hardly huge, about 250 square feet. The size of a garage. Aris would have guessed that it was a garage, between the concrete walls and the roller door at the far end, if it hadn’t been sealed so effectively to any light or sound from outdoors. There were lockers against one wall, each big enough to hold a person, and a long metal table in the centre of the room. A worn-out sofa, and a chest of drawers. Felix made a noise of interest, but he didn’t go so far as to pull away.

Aris dropped his arm, slowly, marking the silence, the lack of motion, threat. ‘If you can fucking teleport, why am I driving your ass everywhere?’

Felix shrugged, lopsided grin in place. ‘Shits and giggles. You brought a gun?’ The question was lightly curious. He was already reaching over to pick things up off the table. Photographs. A radio. A cloth bundle of slender silver lockpicking tools.

Aris didn’t answer, sliding the gun back into his belt, and within a moment Felix seemed to forget he’d asked. ‘So she was doing something illegal.’ He didn’t sound overly disappointed. ‘What… what exactly was she doing?’

It looked like the inside of a storage unit, probably within a facility. There were padlocks on the lockers. A stack of duffel bags in one corner. Buildings and people in the photographs, none of them familiar.

‘A job.’ Aris muttered, crossing to the chest of drawers. ‘Theft, probably.’

A big fucking job, by the looks of it, and not her first. The drawers were filled with tools, gadgets, a soldering iron, a radar jammer, electrical cables. He strode across the room, and tugged the padlocks experimentally. It was worth checking, in case someone had chucked her inside. There was a crowbar in a pile beside them, next to a pair of bolt-cutters, a shovel, and a pickaxe. At the risk of attracting attention, Aris chose the crowbar.

She would have made enemies, in this line of work. She could have made allies, too, who might have turned on her at the slightest provocation.

He’d just slotted the crowbar in the gap between square and loop when Felix interrupted. ‘Look at this.’

He was staring at the back wall, the wall they’d entered through, and in the dim yellow light from the orb overhead Aris could see the slight shine of discolouration over his shoulder. ‘That where we came in?’ It’d be nice to have a way back that didn’t involve breaking out of a secured building.

‘No.’ Felix stepped aside. ‘That is.’ He indicated a second, fainter shine. ‘Where do you think it goes?’

Somewhere bad, Aris would predict, given that she was missing. ‘Don’t have a clue.’

‘Huh.’ He reached for the sigil, and Aris thought for a moment that he was just going to light it up, make it more readable, before he vanished.

‘Fuck.’ There was a sudden, encompassing silence. Gratefully, Aris noticed that the light still shone, floating nicely in the air near the ceiling. He pulled the crowbar free and set it on the table, fuming. If that little shit left him here Aris would hunt him down and break his fingers, regardless of sigils.

Without a noise, Felix rematerialised. Aris snatched for the gun, slowly relinquishing it as he registered the wizard’s apparent wellbeing.

‘It’s just a bathroom.’ He remarked, cheekily. ‘Like a fancy restaurant one, or something. Come on.’

‘Why?’ Aris scowled, but he moved over anyway, letting Felix grab his arm. A restaurant would be uncomfortable, particularly with the two of them appearing out of a goddamn bathroom, but on the other hand the wizard could be wrong, and be stepping headfirst into murder.

He wondered if Felix had defensive magic, beyond his sigils. Or more importantly, combat magic, whatever _that_ meant.

In a breath, they were under soft yellow light, the brightness swallowed by the square gray tile down the walls, the dark slate floor and unbelievably limited amount of room.

Sensibly, Felix seemed to have closed and locked the cubicle into which they arrived, but it had the side effect of forcing them into unexpectedly close proximity. Felix caught his breath, wedged into the corner, and Aris swiftly followed suit, edging back against the toilet as quietly as he could.

Nothing in the room moved, and Felix breathed out. He popped the lock and swung the door open. ‘Look.’ He sounded gleeful, escaping into the greater floor space. ‘So fancy.’

There was a solid stone trough sink under brass-rimmed mirrors, and the room was clean - cleaner than any bathroom Aris had encountered in his usual eating joints - and smelled faintly of flowers.

Apparently distracted by the furnishings, Felix had failed to notice one particularly salient feature of the bathroom.

‘Fix-’Aris started, but he was already carefully prying the door open.

There was a wall visible through the gap, offering the small consolation of a concealed bathroom door, but with the unfortunate consequence that Felix could slip out faster than Aris could stop him.

He swore silently, and followed.

The door sat at the end of a short corridor, with a matching door opposite at the end of another short hall. Felix faltered, catching sight of the plate against the wall reading “Ladies” and the arrow pointing back towards the way they’d come, before shooting a somewhat guilty glance over his shoulder and half-shrugging.

There were voices, muffled and unintelligible, audible from beyond the corridor, but not enough to indicate an open restaurant. Felix crept forwards, and tipped his head around the wall. Aris itched to pull him out of sight, but the decadent building had put him largely at ease. Even if they were spotted, they could bail back through the portal, and leave whoever was here with an entertaining mystery for the evening.

Another questioning glance from Felix, and Aris moved to his shoulder quietly. He was three, possibly four inches taller than the wizard, enough to lean around behind him and look over his head. The room was full of tables, varying in shape and size, most of them draped in felt. It was darkened, windowless, and the only light spilled from blue backlights to the liquor cabinet behind a bar against the far end of the room.

Close to the bar, three figures sat around a circular table. Only one of them was facing towards them, but thankfully he seemed more focused on the conversation, or possibly the substantial stacks of cash on the felt in front of him. The eruption of heat through Aris’s chest, down his arms to his fingertips, signalled his body’s prompt recognition of the danger.

Felix turned his head as if to speak, and Aris automatically clamped a hand over his mouth. He dragged the kid backwards, out of sight, and back-pedalled towards the bathroom door, Ladies’ Room be damned. The door made a soft series of thunks as they hit it, pushed through, and as it swung shut.

Aris flung Felix towards the far end of the room, and the sigil. ‘We gotta go.’

‘What the hell was that?’ Felix rubbed his face irritably. ‘They wouldn’t have seen me.’

Aris caught up with him, seizing his arm and propelling him into the cubicle. ‘Now, Felix.’

The boy sighed, and they were back in the storage unit.

‘What was all that for, d’you think?’ He was frowning, thoughtful, and immediately back to poking around the room. ‘Was she trying to steal that?’

‘Looks like it.’ Aris curled his hand into a fist, waiting for the heat to subside from his skin. Damn fool idea, too. Wasn’t much question now why she’d vanished.

‘From a casino.’ Felix theorised, crossing the room and inspected the padlocks. ‘What do you think happened?’

‘An illegal casino.’ Aris corrected. He watched Felix pull one of the padlocks off, and considered how to answer the second question.

It didn’t matter much, when Felix pulled the locker open and dropped the padlock.

He murmured a curse, and lifted out the long black shotgun. ‘Think she got caught?’


	4. Professional dumb dumb

There were things Yvette could have done to protect herself. Magic she could have used. She may not have committed to the Guild the way Felix had, but there were other ways to learn spells. There was enough crude attack magic they’d experimented with on their own as kids that if she’d been caught, it meant she’d been surprised, and probably killed.

Aris hadn’t answered. He was leaning against the wall, against the sigil, looking bored.

Fix placed the gun back inside the locker, frowning. It was a heavy modern thing that felt strangely foreign to hold. He was used to gold and brass, heavy, roughly hewn metal. Rust. A formality linked to age. A sense of self-importance.

The gun felt smooth and new in comparison. Casual. Raw.

‘So we confront them, then.’ He pushed the locker door closed, turned an inquiring look on his companion. This was Aris’s field, after all. His specialty.

‘No.’ Aris was caught off-guard enough to sound surprised, even alarmed. ‘Fuck, no.’

‘You don’t think they took her?’ _Killed her?_

Aris scoffed. ’This kind of shit gets bankrolled by something bigger and meaner and a hell of a lot more dangerous than _one_ gambling house and a handful of enforcers. You’re not confronting three guys in a basement, you’re provoking a fucking mob boss.’

‘So?’ Fix shrugged. ‘Unless he’s an archmage - or _invincible_ \- I’d say we’ve got a decent advantage.’

For a second, Aris merely glowered. ‘Neither of us are… _invincible_. And how the fuck would you know if he’s an arch-whatever or not? Or if one works for him? Or if your party tricks will do anything actually _helpful_ in a goddamn _fight_ against _bullets_.’

Felix raised a finger. ‘They would.’

‘Shut up.’ Aris strode forward, catching his arm in a threateningly firm grip. ‘You’re dumb as hell. Take us back.’

Felix dipped his head towards the dashboard, resting his eyes.

He didn’t understand Aris’s reluctance. He knew the man could heal. Burns, stab wounds, bullet holes, if necessary. Somebody’s awe and disbelief regarding his ability to survive deadly situations was the entire reason Fix knew about him in the first place, but his sudden unwillingness to face danger was the last thing Felix had been expecting.

He’d specifically wanted someone who was reckless, daring, _bloodthirsty_ … and this turn of events was something of a disappointment.

Aris had made him leave the storage room, and briefly attempted to abandon him at Yve’s apartment, but he’d wound up in the passenger’s seat of the car anyway, turning the radio back on every time Aris switched it off.

The third time, Aris slapped a hand on the dial (his hand was about the size of Fix’s face) and threatened to cut his fingers off if he touched the radio again.

Fix hummed, drumming said fingers on the car window. ‘I could still do it though.’

Aris fumed silently for a few minutes, finally snapping. ’Why not just use magic for everything, instead of bothering with all this human shit?’

‘I dunno.’ Felix sighed, drummed his fingers more, sighed again. ‘Grew up doing things normally. Doesn’t really make sense to use magic unless I get stuck. I honestly don’t… do _much_ , usually, y’know.’

Not to mention the fact that it was frowned upon, by the Guild. Magic was supposed to be a private matter, at least the spell-form of magic disseminated by archmages. Sacred, they sometimes called it. A process of rules and formality and… ritual, in a way. Tossing spells about wildly upon a whim was the behaviour of rebels and rejects… and those who were quickly added to the Guild’s list of dissidents.

It might be Felix, one day, but _did it even matter now?_

Aris looked as though he was going to comment, but he didn’t speak.

If Fix had done more, pushed more, for the Guild to take a more active approach to dealing with magical transgressions, then he might have been able to stop whatever Yve had been getting up to, with her clearly criminal use of magic. Now, instead, he was following in her steps just to find her… or her body, if that was how it played out.

‘Why not?’ Aris asked, shifting his grip on the steering wheel. He seemed uncomfortable with merely asking the question, any question, to Fix’s amusement. ‘If your lot really can do whatever they want with magic, why not go nuts? Go public? Run for presidency? Take over the world?’

‘You can’t argue we don’t have cause to be wary. Burned witches and slaughtered heretics and all that.’

‘You’re afraid of being burned as a witch?’ Aris responded dryly.

‘We are human.’ Fix snorted. ‘ _Most_ of us are actually quite fragile.’

Aris’s grip tightened, the leather wheel creaking gently in protest. Fix noted the response curiously. For someone so accusatory, Aris sure seemed defensive about his own magic.

‘Individuals have weaknesses.’ Fix yielded, sympathetically. ‘Or… fault lines. It’s not exactly the kind of structured process fiction likes to portray, or at least, not a structure we can perceive, but there is always a kind of balance.’

‘Sometimes magic seems to set its own rules, like with mages and archmages. But it’s not always hereditary, and it’s not always anything to do with what a person actually enjoys or desires. It doesn’t seem to occupy any space, or link unconditionally with identity. It just exists, and interacts. But sometimes it bypasses people entirely, and sometimes it can be unusually contingent.’

Aris cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re saying.’

Felix twisted sideways, propping his knee against the glovebox. He felt like a prophet, imparting wisdom to his disciple. ’All I’m saying is that it can be unpredictable. Or it can be logical. Sometimes magic does what it wants, and sometimes people choose what to do with it.’ Like _fight crime_ , or _save lives_ , or _defeat villains_.

A sideways glance, weary with exasperation, warned Fix that he wasn’t winning any favours with his explanation. ‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’

‘No.’ Fix admitted. ‘It’s just… one way of saying we still don’t really get it. Or that there is more than one _way_ to get it. Or that there is more than one thing to _get_.’

Aris groaned, drawing the car to a sharp halt alongside the curb. It was dark outside, but Felix recognised the neighbourhood before the headlights shut off. He heard the dull thud of Aris thumping his forehead into the steering wheel. ’Remind me again why I’m here, wizard.’

‘Because you’re getting paid.’ Fix supplied helpfully, shoving his door open. He peeled himself out, feeling the cooler air outside leach through his clothing. Already, the silver-blue impression of Yvette’s sigil was floating across his view of darkened streets, smudged pavement, sprinkler-damp grass. He could remember it, down to each of her flourishing details. She was theatrical, always had been, but Fix was a tolerable forger.

He leaned back down into the car, grinning. ‘I need your bank account details, by the way.’

He could make the sigil work, from here. He didn’t absolutely need to, because he could muster a basic teleportation spell with enough expense of time and energy, but he also wasn’t sure where the casino actually was. It could have been six states away, for all he knew. It could have been a different country. The symbol was vital as a focal point, or even, as Aris so poetically viewed it, _a gate_.

He’d already deformed part of the sigil in the storage unit. Without modification, trying to teleport with multiple sigils in play could have fatally ripped him to pieces in transit to both the apartment and the bathroom terminals, but Aris either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared about him scratching away part of the second sigil before they’d blinked away.

Aris climbed from the car, and glared over the roof at him. ‘Job’s not done.’

Fix traced the outline of the plan in his mind. Defensive spells were important, a shield would be best, and he could hold onto the magic throughout an interaction without much concentration. He had plenty of practice deflecting projectiles without being too obvious, even directing them back towards their owners, and the magic was mostly reflexive. If someone made contact with him, he could repel them with force. If he was injured, he had healing spells in his repertoire. It wasn’t an unusually daunting task, if only Aris would consider how well prepared they would be.

‘I told you.’ He tossed over a shoulder, heading for the building gate. ‘Equals. Y’know. Salary, or whatever.’

He didn’t really blame the man, though. There was a distinct difference between _having_ magic and _wielding_ magic. Fix didn’t know exactly what it felt like to have a bounded magical repertoire… he’d always had the capacity to to learn more, to use more, to gain ability, but he figured it probably felt a little frightening. As intimidating and physically competent as Aris might have _seemed_ , he still healed only when his magic worked to heal him. It wasn’t a choice, or a spell. It probably didn’t even count as an ability… He was just a human with an unusual natural propensity that he didn’t have any control over.

It was understandably too much for him… but still, Fix found himself feeling disappointed.

‘The hell d’you mean?’ Aris slipped through the gate behind him, voice lowered. ‘We haven’t gotten anywhere.’

‘You get paid anyway.’ Felix answered, catching Aris’s little wince out of the corner of his eye. He frowned, reaching for the building door. ’Haven’t you ever had a normal job?’

‘You’d call this normal?’ He followed Fix inside anyway, holding the door open with an arm reaching over Fix’s head. ‘Seriously.’

‘You ever robbed a casino before?’ Fix asked, provoking another wince.

‘No.’ The response was short, sharp, and quiet. ‘Did work in one, though.’

‘Really?’ The elevator pinged, and Fix swivelled to examine his companion. He didn’t look much like a card shark, or a dealer. Security, probably.

‘Yeah.’ Aris sighed, and followed him into the elevator with a frown. ‘They’re twitchy motherfuckers.’

A pause… Felix could list the spells he needed on one hand, for pulling this off. Piece of cake.

Aris added reluctantly. ‘There’ll be a way to find out what happened to her.’

He didn’t bother answering.

Aris stopped him before they reached the apartment door, a hand almost catching around his arm. ‘There’s someone in your apartment.’

Made sense, that he would be able to recognise signs of intruders before Fix did, but it didn’t make much sense that anyone could get past both the wards and the actual, functional, mechanical locks on the door.

It was unlocked, and Felix pushed inside, acknowledging the warning with a nod. Again, Aris’s caution struck him as unexpected. The man dealt in criminality for a living, for Christ’s sake. Wasn’t he used to intruders?

The television was on, down the end of the hall. Felix could hear the steady bursts of laughter, a studio audience, or maybe just canned amusement.

Aris moved ahead, remarkably stealthy in spite of his height. He stole out through the archway, beyond the cover of the hall, and a moment later someone shrieked.

Felix caught up a second afterwards, throwing himself over the back of the sofa to tumble between the two potential combatants.

For whatever reason, Aris had known better than to reach for the gun. He was merely standing by one end of the sofa, looking faintly and comically startled, like an well-meaning dog who had inadvertently scared the hell out of someone.

Lucia, on the other hand, looked offended. And embarrassed. And offended about feeling embarrassed.

‘Oh.’ She said abruptly, flicking her gaze across Felix as he righted himself. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

She looked over his shoulder, briefly, at Aris, and back again, and effectively dismissed his answer before he’d said it. ‘I needed a break from Molly, and I thought you’d want company.’

 _But I can see you already have some_ , her tone implied. Her eyebrows, delicately raised, added further commentary. Fix neglected to acknowledge it.

‘We were working.’ He answered.

‘Right.’ She said vaguely. ‘Well, don’t let me keep you.’

‘My sister.’ Fix told Aris cheerfully. ‘Lucia. Lucia, Aris.’

Wisely, Aris lifted his chin warily and otherwise didn’t move.

‘Oh.’ Lou repeated, smiling. ‘Okay.’

Felix had explained the idea of bringing someone on board for the investigation. He’d specifically mentioned the importance of it being someone well-versed in more questionable uses of magic. He’d even noted a few good, possible candidates from the Guild’s watchlist, and several additional, intriguing options gathered from rumours.

He didn’t know if she’d recognise Aris from the description he’d given. He wasn’t sure she’d even really been listening.

‘Let me sort the… thing, and you might as well call it a night.’ He pointed back towards the desk, and Aris seemed grateful for an excuse to stop uneasily watching his sister. Fix wondered if the similarities between the two of them were unsettling him.

It was still early - significantly earlier than their first night of work - but either their lack of progress or Lou’s presence was enough to make Aris bail immediately after Fix had copied his details. The front door was barely closed behind him and Lou had skated into view at the far end of the room, poised by the corner where she could see both Felix and her program.

‘What was it he did?’

‘I don’t know, exactly.’ Felix considered that only a half-lie. He didn’t know… exactly. There were probably plenty of things Aris had done that Fix hadn’t found information about, and probably plenty of things he’d found that hadn’t been accurate.

Though in retrospect, that didn’t seem like a very good defence.

‘Mm-hm.’ There was a pause. She navigated backwards around the kitchen bench, aiming for some food or foods unknown. A pause to hear the muffled speaking of the TV, followed by more laughter, and then she looked over at him. ‘Has he killed anyone?’

‘I expect so.’ Felix shrugged. ‘It’s common enough.’

She snorted, but it was clear she knew he wasn’t joking. It didn’t seem problematic. ‘He’s very young.’

’S’pose.’ He hadn’t wanted to work with anyone much older, for ease of communication. Nor had he been willing to work with someone who wasn’t aware of the magic they were wielding, which wasn’t likely to be an issue with Aris. And there were obvious boundaries to be drawn around just how bad the criminal activity in their past could be.

So perhaps Fix couldn’t claim full knowledge of everything Aris might have done, but as far as the records (legal, anecdotal, or sealed) were concerned, Aris’s behaviour hardly constituted evil, even when it was really, very, nauseatingly violent. And the maimed or dead had all apparently been criminals too. Felix was reasonably convinced Aris limited his violence to underworld infighting.

He was also reasonably certain he could prevent Aris from hurting him. Maybe he couldn’t permanently stop the man, but he could easily defend himself. And at least if it came to that, Fix would know Aris couldn’t be trusted.

So he was dangerous. Dangerous was what Felix needed, to start making inroads with the problems stacking up around the city.

If only he’d actually demonstrated it earlier in the evening.

Lucia returned to her program without further curiosity. She was politely disinterested in Felix’s methods of operation, sensibly unfazed after dozens of years witnessing his impulsive decisions. They rarely ended badly. He was lucky like that. He also liked to think his leaps were predicated on good, well-informed judgement. He wasn’t an _idiot_.

He changed in his bedroom. Boots, cargo pants, and a grey sweater. Clothes from the odd hiking trip he’d taken while at university. They hadn’t made him appear physically competent then, and they weren’t any more effective now. Occasionally it helped to be unassuming, especially with those who expected every fight to depend on sheer strength.

He had to unload everything from a bookcase and move it aside to clear enough space against the wall that wasn’t already occupied with wards, and drew Yve’s sigil onto the plaster in pencil. A few times he needed to erase sections and repeat them, doubting both his hand and his memory, but impatience quickly won out and he traced the pattern with clear polish and waited for it to set to ensure he’d be able to make it back again.

 _Shit_. Alright, the next step was to teleport. If he got the sense he was about to be shredded apart across fourth dimensional space, he’d pull back.

His fingers tingled faintly. He laid a hand against the wall, hesitated, and-

There wasn’t an opportunity to get a sense of anything before he was standing in the tiled toilet cubicle, blinking. A second later he registered the noise, the motion outside, and slapped the door shut with sudden panic.

 _Fuck_. Okay, there were people in the bathroom now. The click of high heeled shoes, the soft murmur of voices, and then the lilt of giggling. Women… which made sense. Because it was a Ladies’ Room. Where Fix very definitely didn’t belong.

Thankfully, nobody seemed to notice that an unoccupied cubicle had unexpectedly slammed shut. He tucked himself into the corner, cringing. It was hardly the impressive entrance he’d envisioned.

There were people here. Customers, or clients, or whatever they were called in a place like this. So the casino was open, and he would be less obvious (once he’d snuck out of the bathroom), but there were also more potential witnesses to any magic he used.

It took a while, fifteen, twenty minutes, for the bathroom to start clearing. A woman would leave, and then a second, and Fix would get ready to run for the door, but then someone new would push in, sometimes with a friend, or two.

He started listening to them, talking about which games had been good, which tables seemed unlucky. Blackjack seemed favourable, this evening. Roulette was always good for a laugh. Poker was to be avoided, the current table was a mix of excellent players taking things too seriously and mediocre players not taking things seriously enough. Pai gow, someone argued, it was the only tolerable game of the whole floor. Hushed comments were made about the attractiveness of the croupiers, the waiters, waitresses. The bouncers. Hannington. Laughter was traded over which players were the most repugnant, the loudest, the most obnoxious.

Finally, there was silence. Felix pushed his hair out of his eyes, covering as much of his face as possible with his arm and darted out of the cubicle.

The little hall was empty, and he skidded out with enough momentum to nearly collide with the wall. He righted himself, summoned as many defensive spells to mind as he could remember, and turned the corner.

It was immediately evident that he was underdressed. Earlier, the room had been empty, if expensively decorated, and had seemed unimpressively hollow in the gloom. Now, with warm orange cubes lighting the walls, the richly coloured mandala carpeting, the carefully upholstered chairs and tables edged in teak polished until gleaming, and glasses of champagne or whiskey being spun through the crowd on silver trays, the whole place was unexpectedly glamorous. The men were wearing black tie, or business suits, and the women were either in suits or evening gowns. Nothing underway seemed to call for the formality, but Fix had never actually been to a casino, so he was forced to assume that was normal.

Two women passed him, headed towards the bathroom, in ankle length dresses and heels. They spared him matching glances of fleeting interest, nothing more. A man lounging at the closest table shot him a disdainful look, followed by the professionally restrained gaze of the croupier. Most other patrons were too absorbed in their games, their drinks, or each other to notice him.

The room was packed, tumultuous, filled with noise. Five at some tables, two or three at others, the croupiers, shuffling and clicking cards, twirling chips, checking dice. There was a crowd of twenty-odd just clustered around the bar, blocking the blue backlight, and dozens of others milling about, spectating, snatching at passing drinks, at passing waitresses.

Fix wondered how many times Yve had been here. Mixing with this crowd, or sneaking around when they were absent. How had she gotten in in the first place? Had she tricked her way inside as a gambler, or someone’s date, or as a waitress? Had she used magic for that too? She’d been able to copy Lou’s talents at persuasion, a long time ago, but she’d never… at least, Felix didn’t think she’d ever learned other forms of magic. How would he know, at this point? She could have been doing anything.

He picked out a security guard in the crowd, at almost the exact moment the man noticed him. He was nearly twice Fix’s size, in height and width, wrapped in a black suit jacket the size of a tent, and as they made brief but undeniable eye contact, he untangled two hands the size of saucepans from in front of his waist.

Felix stopped walking, but he moved enough to take a glass of champagne passing on a nearby tray, with a word of thanks to the waitress. He couldn’t help but wonder, as the frowning man-mountain picked his way closer through the crowd, how Aris would fare in combat with such a being. Fix’s partner was far from diminutive… but even he’d be hard-pressed to look intimidating next to… this.

‘Excuse me, sir.’ The bouncer had reached him, and planted himself, feet spread, about three feet away. ‘There’s a dress code.’

His voice rumbled like the engine of an eighteen-wheeler. Felix downed the rest of the champagne.

‘I’m just dropping in.’ He said lightly. ‘I need to speak with the boss.’

The bouncer looked poised to squash the idea, immediately and thoroughly, or perhaps Felix himself.

Fix added; ‘It’s about a woman going missing from here.’ He fought the urge to take a step back, stop his neck hurting from holding eye contact. ‘Out of respect for the business, of course, we didn’t want to send in the police unnecessarily.’

His opponent remained silently motionless, for a few seconds, and finally seemed to exhale. ‘This way, sir. I’ll arrange some privacy for you and Mr. Hannington.’

Privacy was a sleek and soundproof office, down a hall behind a door, hidden in a recess behind the bar. There were bourbon-coloured chairs, and the walls were rows of backlit niches containing aged liquor, pieces of art, crystal decanters, oversized champagne bottles and gold and silver boxes undoubtedly filled with strictly recreational substances.

The bouncer had passed instructions along to someone else, and he followed Felix into the room, watching impassively from near the doorway.

A desk separated one of the chairs from the rest of the room, solid, and wood-based, with a surface of black glass or stone polished to a mirror sheen. The door was far to the left of the desk, and the bouncer was between Fix and the exit anyway, so he rejected the notion of being relegated to a guest seat and proceeded to slump directly (and he was hoping confidently) into prime position behind the desk.

Hannington entered the room a few minutes later. He looked to be a man in his early fifties, with copious amounts of fashionably silver hair, a solemnly heavy brow, and a wide mouth. He was smiling, even as the door closed, smiling even as he laid his eyes on Felix, already settled into what must have been his own chair.

He continued to smile as he lowered himself into the chair opposite, careful not to crease the lines of the navy blue suit he was wearing, and adjusted his tie.

‘Many apologies for the delay. It’s chaotic out there, isn’t it?’ When he spoke, it revealed two rows of perfectly even, perfectly white teeth. The width of his mouth and the size of each tooth made it seem like he had too many, neatly lined up like soldiers awaiting orders. ‘I gather you have something you would like to discuss with me?’

‘Mr. Hannington.’ Fix let his gaze wander the room, to where the two figures - the bouncer, and what Felix suspected was a bodyguard - were taking up positions either side of the exit. He smiled, and turned back to the owner. ‘I’m looking for a friend of mine.’

‘Indeed?’ From Fix’s perspective, there were two Hanningtons. The one reclining in the chair, apparently at ease, and the upside down, reversed reflection in the polished surface of the desk. The latter seemed like a demonic version of the first, dark hollows where the eyes should have been visible, and shadows under the chin, around the angles of the jaw. Both mouths opened wide when he talked, an unsettling duplication. ‘Who might that be?’

‘She has too many nicknames for me to be sure what she went by here, but she tends to make an impression.’ _Bruising_ , if Felix’s experience in high school was anything to go by. ‘About five feet tall, Chinese, eyes like flint, always makes a compliment sound like an insult.’

Hannington’s smile widened, but it was hard to distinguish him as genuine or a skilled actor. ‘Now, that does strike me as familiar. We had a croupier, bright young thing, wit like a whip. Sounds like it could have been your friend.’ He mimicked an expression of apology. ‘But I can’t help you, it seems. Even if it was her, that young woman hasn’t worked here for, god, I don’t know how long.’

He summoned the bouncer with a sharp bark of “ _Johnny_.”

‘When’d that little croupier, y’know the one Koger was so taken with, when’d she quit working here?’

Johnny had leaned forward inquisitively, as though he hadn’t already been able to hear everything, and he pursed his lips in thought. ‘Antonia, sir. Not for a good, maybe, six weeks?’

‘That’d be right.’ Hannington turned back to the desk, linking his fingers together over one knee. He looked pleased, but he also didn’t look like he was expecting Felix to just give up and leave.

‘That’s a shame.’ Fix sighed, glanced down at his own narrow-eyed reflection. ‘She talked so much about this place before she disappeared. Almost every damn day, she was going on about this guy bet that, and some woman bet this. Half the time I didn’t believe her, until I saw it for myself just now.’

He noted Hannington’s jaw tightening fractionally. The only sign that he perceived the implied threat. Sure, Fix didn’t actually have any names or details of patrons to bargain with, but rich people doing bad things would invariably leap at the chance to avoid having them revealed publicly.

It was equally a suggestion that Felix had been involved in her scheming, plotting against Hannington’s money. And a warning that there might be others, possibly ready to raise hell.

‘At least I can be sure her family and friends will stop at nothing to find her.’ He produced an unconvincingly forlorn smile. ‘It’s a relief to know so many are willing to keep searching, and some are very powerful, so it’s inevitable that we’ll get to the bottom of it.’

He wasn’t sure if they even knew Yve had been magic, when they’d caught her. He wasn’t sure if she’d lasted long enough for them find out. He wasn’t even sure (in over his head, surrounded by criminals, now, and Aris probably sleeping like a baby somewhere) if he’d actually been totally correct in assuming that they’d been the ones to take her.

He had to play his cards, at one point or another. He was certain he’d be using magic to get out of the building. If they understood, excellent. If they didn’t, he’d make them.

‘We’re very similar, me and… Antonia.’ He fidgeted in the chair, in a manner that was hopefully as disrespectful as it was restless. ‘We’re both willing to do whatever it takes to get what we want. And all _I_ want, is to find _her_.’

Hannington’s smile grew, from a somewhat unnerving but cheery curve to a threateningly toothy, insincere grin. He looked pissed. He looked ready to lunge across the table and bite Fix’s face off.

‘As I’ve already said, I’m sure I can’t help you.’

‘And I’m sure you can.’

Felix popped one of the lights in the little wall shelves. It was similar to what he’d done in the bar where he’d met Aris, only the light was a little different, and the covered bulb flickered out with one sharp cracking noise.

Hannington paused, grin vanishing, but it took a few seconds before he made the effort to look over his shoulder.

He knew. Felix could see it in his sudden wariness. Feel the skyrocketing tension in the room.

Through gritted teeth, he hissed; ‘I want to know where she is.’

Silence.

An oversized bottle of champagne shattered, flinging chunks of glass, and creating an almost-majestic silver-gold cascade of liquid and bubbles. Most of it poured out, down onto the carpet, but enough of it lingered, dripping down through the shelf, onto the objects below. The bodyguard twitched forward, but didn’t quite break his stance.

Bubbles, Fix thought, contemplating the eruption. Bubbles substituted for bullets.

This time, Hannington hadn’t even bothered to look. All traces of humour, of feigned geniality, were gone.

He raised a hand towards the bodyguard, and Johnny, in a somewhat soothing manner. Raised the other, towards Fix, in a gesture of appeasement.

‘She’s gone.’ He said, calmly enough.

Felix said nothing. There was a bottle of something that looked old on a top shelf, and he considered ripping it out and flinging it towards the wall. More violent, and absolutely more expressive. _She’s gone_.

‘We didn’t kill her.’ Hannington added. His lips had thinned, making it look as though there was a narrow gash splitting his chin from the rest of his head. ‘Her… _kind_ … are sought after by certain individuals. We just passed her on.’

 _Passed her on._ Like a product, like an object. They’d _sold_ her. Felix curled one hand into a fist, low by his leg, fingers digging into his palm. ‘On to whom?’

‘To the institute.’ He shrugged, with dismissive finality. ‘She was a _thief_.’

‘What institute?’ Fix leaned forward. Another light popped. Johnny was holding his hand at one hip, blissfully unaware of the uselessness of his weapon. ‘Who?’

‘The Avenburg Institute.’ Hannington replied, as though the name was common knowledge. He sneered vindictively; ‘They’re buyers of rare commodities.’

The old bottle shattered against the opposite wall. Felix stood up, jaw clenched. ‘Where are they?’

‘They send their people to pick things up.’

‘How did you -’ Fix halted, took a breath. He was angry… furious, but this could mean she was still alive, if it was true. He needed to know as much as possible. Mostly he needed to know if this was a lie. ‘How did you contain her?’

Magic required concentration, in one form or another. It didn’t need to be active. If the magic was subtle, the focus could be too. Painting, singing, running, all could be done with the mage’s mind almost absent from the task, so long as it was meditative. Trance-like. So long as it transcended the ordinary noise of human thought.

Yve’s type of magic, and Fix’s, needed active effort. Consciousness and commitment. They could have knocked her out. But it wouldn’t have been permanent.

‘Sedation.’ Hannington answered abruptly, straightening in his seat. ‘She was here to steal from me. I took necessary steps to remove her.’

Felix leaned both hands on the desk. He imagined ruining the polish, cracking it into two halves like an egg. ‘Where do I find them?’

Hannington stood, slowly, recovering his composure. ’I’ve never asked. However, you could try their website.’

‘Trust me.’ Fix was glowering. ‘When I tell you that I will ruin you, if you’re lying.’

‘I believe you.’ Hannington’s expression was calm. ‘And it’s the truth.’

He waved one hand, and the two landmasses either side of the door split apart, clearing an unimpeded path for Felix to leave. They could try to jump him, for all he cared. He wanted an opportunity to throw someone across the room, at this point.

He was still glaring at Hannington, searching for a sign of deceit, and only when Hannington lowered his gaze to the floor, yielding, he turned for the door.

He’d be back, whether he found Yve or not. He’d burn the building to the ground.

The security had given him plenty of room. Neither of them looked interested in trying to attempt a surprise attack. As soon as he’d grabbed the door handle and twisted he realised why, with pain shooting through his arm up to his shoulder and spreading, catching like wildfire until every muscle was burning.

He hit the floor, gasping, with the horrible sensation of being unable to operate his own body.

Someone drew closer, a body that blotted out all light, and a foot hit the side of his face with enough force to drive galaxies up behind his eyes. _Brain damage_ , he suspected instantly.

The inky darkness didn’t subside until several minutes later. He was upright, though not on the ground. His limbs still twitching without his permission. He could definitely taste blood.

He reached for magic, and nothing happened.

A huge, meaty hand was holding the front of his sweater. His toes were barely dragging on the floor. There was something pressing upwards into his throat, blunt and constricting and metal. Johnny’s face wavered in his view, professionalism now not-quite concealing the smirk on his face.

Fix tried to swear through an absence of oxygen, and punched him. He felt something fold, and heard something crunch, and then nothingness.


End file.
